Sunday, November 7, 2010

So such luck this time out but it does look like another candidate might have pleased the great god Diebold by having a last name starting with the letter "A". I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the Georgia Supreme Court race because of being preoccupied with the Insurance Commissioner race but the saga Tammy Adkins is quite compelling. Talk about your reluctant candidate, Tammy's photo can not be found anywhere on the World Wide Web, normally you gotta pay extra for that.

I think that this race may the first of the unknown politician variety. Think about it, supposedly the population at large is so sick of negative campaigning that more than half don't even vote. What a fresh breath of air to encounter a politician that will only reveal their names when they absolutely, positively have to do so.

Since I'll be heading to the polls here in DeKalb County for the run off to cast my ballot for Michael Rothenberg for DeKalb Superior Court Judge, I think I'll toss a vote Tammy's way as well. I wonder what candidate David Nahmias thinks about that 2009 vote now?

Georgia’s Tammy Adkins Becomes the New Alvin Greene

ATLANTA, GA – Georgia’s unverifiable statewide voting equipment has just produced results remarkably similar to the infamous Alvin Greene victory during the June, U.S. Senate primary in South Carolina. In that case, statewide unverifiable voting equipment recorded Alvin Greene as a near landslide 60-40% winner over Vic Rawl, who actually won the tangible absentee ballot count by a 55-45% margin. Vic Rawl ran an extensive campaign while Alvin Greene had no web site and literally no campaign. More…

In the November 2010, non-partisan, Georgia Supreme Court election, Tammy Adkins won a run-off spot against incumbent David Nahmias by garnering 36% of the vote compared to 48% for the incumbent and 16% for the primary challenger, Matt Wilson. That may sound normal until realizing that the run-off challenger was a virtual recluse.

Tammy Adkins, a family lawyer, did not campaign, did not have a web site, did not accept donations, did not respond to surveys, did not advertise, had no published profile, did not register phone or Email contact data and refused all media requests. Despite running for another judgeship two years ago, she was unknown among politically active voters including those in her Lawrenceville hometown. Georgians had no way to even see her picture. But the voting machines and optical scanners still recorded 733,770 votes for her, over seven times the number recorded for Alvin Greene.

By contrast, Matt Wilson, a 35 year civil litigator based in a high profile, Buckhead location, made radio and TV appearances, accepted many speaking engagements, established a platform of judicial philosophy, received endorsements and support across the political spectrum, performed minority outreach, sent out 6 million Emails, recruited dozens of volunteers, erected numerous yard signs, had hundreds of Facebook and Twitter friends and publicly engaged the incumbent on his track record in the media.

Studies indicate that top ballot positioning could provide a 2.5% vote advantage and a female gender could provide as much as a 3.5% advantage. But even if those advantages were doubled, there is still no way to account for the remaining half million votes recorded by the machines for Ms. Adkins.

Georgia’s Elections Director was asked to explain the outcome of this race but has yet to reply. Ironically, Ms. Adkins opponent, David Nahmias, was one of the justices who voted in 2009 to allow Georgia to continue using unverifiable voting equipment.